The Journal of Chinese for Social Science (JCSS) explores the use of Chinese in social science research, teaching and publishing, in cross-cultural academic exchange, and in transcultural knowledge production, dissemination and practice. It examines how meaning is constructed through language in specific academic contexts, and promotes a re-examination of how concepts, terms and meanings have evolved in existing translations and language-use practices in the Chinese social sciences.
Chinese for Social Science is an important branch of Chinese for Specific Purposes (CSP). Together with Chinese for Science and Technology, Business Chinese and related areas, it forms part of a broader research framework for Chinese in professional domains. What distinguishes it is its focus on how language participates in the construction of social science concepts and in knowledge production, and its emphasis that social science knowledge is always rooted in particular linguistic, historical, cultural and intellectual traditions. The concept originated in the China in Comparative Perspective Network at the London School of Economics (CCPN at LSE), founded in 2006, which later became CCPN Global, the predecessor of Global China Academy. Since 2014, the Global China Dialogue Series Forum has brought together scholars from many countries and disciplines, as well as professionals from a range of institutions, in sustained dialogue on China and global issues, laying a rich theoretical and practical foundation for the development of Chinese for Social Science.
Global Century Press’s long-standing practice of English–Chinese bilingual publishing has created an international platform for the two-way circulation of social science concepts and ideas. Yet translated terms used in isolation, detached from their specific contexts, often undergo shifts in meaning and may even give rise to Orientalist representations of China. JCSS therefore pays particular attention to the differences between original concepts and their translated counterparts, and stresses the importance of understanding and using language within its historical, cultural and academic contexts, so as to foster more accurate and analytically more powerful cross-cultural academic exchange and transcultural knowledge production.
Unlike conventional bilingual or dual-language publishing models, JCSS is edited and published in accordance with the Global Century Press Bilingual Style Guide² and itself serves as a practical example of the Press’s theory of Integrated Dual-Language Publishing (IDLP). Under this approach, the two languages are not simply corresponding versions of a text, but complementary ways of organising, interpreting and disseminating knowledge. Integrated dual-language publishing is therefore not merely a process of translation, but an integral part of transcultural knowledge production, dissemination and practice.
Since 2025, JCSS has developed into a Chinese-language academic journal with distinctive Chinese–English bilingual features. Taking Chinese for Social Science as its core object of study, it is dedicated to advancing Chinese-language research in the social sciences, international Chinese language education, bilingual academic publishing, and interdisciplinary and cross-cultural exchange of knowledge, and to fostering transcultural understanding, collaboration and knowledge sharing among different academic communities.
The journal has five sections: Teaching Research Papers, Student Writing, Translations of Leading Scholars’ Research, Community Building, and Bilingual Integration. It welcomes original research in the social sciences, international Chinese language education, translation studies, bilingual publishing and related fields.
ISSN 2633-9501 (print)
ISSN 2633-9633 (online)
DOI https://doi.org/10.24103/jcss.cn
